Greenwood Village's Next Great Tables Are Filling the Tech Center's Empty Spaces

In early September, the dining room at 8100 E. Union Ave. still had plastic sheeting on the walls, and saws and drills were running. Troy Guard was walking a Westword reporter through what will become G&G Surf Club. The 8,500-square-foot restaurant is planned with a wraparound bar and lounge, a raw bar, a sushi bar, an open kitchen, a private dining room, roughly 225 seats inside and two large patios. According to Westword's September 16 report, the team was aiming for an October or November opening, with no exact date announced.

Its location in an office complex is part of a pattern. Most of the restaurants coming to Greenwood Village are opening inside office parks, in spaces that were empty, unfinished or never used. The Tech Center's office slump is what's bringing them in.

A kitchen built for a restaurant that never opened

G&G Surf Club is moving into the Penterra Plaza building. Guard signed a 15-year lease there with landlord Edgewood REIT for a prebuilt space, according to the Denver Post. The space was originally built for Golden Oak, an upscale restaurant from Oak View Group, a venue hospitality company that moved its headquarters to Denver in 2023. Golden Oak was supposed to open in early 2025 and serve as a training kitchen for the company's chefs. Sources told BusinessDen the firm spent more than $10 million on the buildout. Golden Oak never opened.

Westword describes the space as sitting vacant for years after McCormick & Schmick's left the property. Both histories fit. An older restaurant moved out, a new kitchen was built for a concept that never launched, and the space stayed empty until a proven operator signed.

That history explains the timeline. A new restaurant built from scratch usually takes much longer than one that inherits a finished kitchen. Guard told the Post his group will still spend "significant dollars" on changes, including an island bar and a raw bar. The concept is a seafood-focused take on his flagship steakhouse, Guard and Grace. It will serve high-end steaks, salads and pastas alongside fish dishes inspired by the years he spent in Hawaii, Seattle and San Diego before moving to Denver at 30. TAG Restaurant Group's announcement adds wood-fired dishes and fresh pasta.

Why landlords are making the calls now

Two September sales a few blocks apart show what Tech Center office landlords are facing. Terrace at Orchard Station, at 5575 DTC Pkwy., sold that month for $5.75 million. BusinessDen reported that's 66% less than the $17.11 million the seller paid in October 2020. Later that month, the Offices at the Promenade complex at 7935 and 7995 E. Prentice Ave. sold for $5.4 million, 68% below its $16.9 million sale price in 2016, according to BusinessDen.

Not every office deal is a fire sale. In July, UCHealth bought One and Two Greenwood Plaza at 6550 and 6560 Greenwood Plaza Blvd. for $19.4 million and said it plans to consolidate administrative functions there, BusinessDen reported. Overall, though, owners with empty ground floors and unfinished restaurant spaces have good reason to recruit tenants who can draw a crowd. Guard described what that looks like from his side in the same Westword interview:

"I think it says great things about our restaurant group that landlords are coming to us and giving us great opportunities that we didn't get maybe before because it's harder out there. It's tougher. A lot of restaurants have closed."

He said he didn't go out looking for these locations. "They came to me." Westword describes his recent work as weighing offers from landlords trying to bring proven operators into long-vacant spaces. When offices aren't filling up, restaurant deals get better, and well-known names have more leverage to pick where they open.

What's open, approved and still on paper

The same pattern shows up across the Tech Center: established brands moving into existing commercial addresses. Their timelines vary, so here's where each project stood as of mid-October 2026.

Westword's July roundup listed Yummy Hot Pot at 8181 E. Arapahoe Road among its openings. It's an all-you-can-eat hot pot restaurant with meats, seafood, vegetables, soups, noodles and dumplings. The exact opening day was never published. Reviews show it was serving by September 4.

The Brinkerhoff opened its first location in Castle Rock last year, BusinessDen reported in July. The second location is planned for Greenwood Plaza Boulevard. The Planning and Zoning Commission recommended the site plan unanimously in July. City Council then unanimously approved the site plan and development agreement for the 9,800-square-foot project in mid-September. No opening date or chef has been announced.

Barcelona Wine Bar will open its second Denver-area location at On The Square. The first is at 2900 Larimer Street in RiNo. Plans call for about 4,000 square feet inside and two patios of roughly 1,000 square feet each, with Spanish and Mediterranean small plates and a wine list that runs to more than 40 wines by the glass, WhatNow reported.

Closer to Belleview Station, the development's own dining directory labels Egg Harbor Cafe at 7222 E. Layton Ave., El Tule at 4862 S. Newport St. and Tifa Chocolate and Gelato at 4880 S. Newport St. as "Recently Opened." Misty Dynasty Imperial Peking Duck is listed as "Coming Soon." The directory doesn't give dates for any of them.

The rent math shapes the menu

Cheap office space doesn't mean cheap restaurants. Guard explained how he evaluates a deal. First he asks whether he likes the area and what it's missing. Then he runs the numbers: "Can I get enough butts in the seats to pay my rent, my CAMs, my taxes, my labor, my food, all that stuff?" He said he could make a space work as a lower-priced concept, but "I'm going to have to do a lot more people."

That's how a Tech Center address ends up with a 225-seat seafood-and-steak room. When a landlord makes the deal attractive, the operator can choose a higher price point and a destination concept over high volume. The Brinkerhoff and Barcelona are also full-service, sit-down concepts from established brands, not quick-service chains.

The turnover goes both ways. Westword's July roundup listed Crave Cookies at 4940 S. Yosemite St. among its closures. Its September roundup listed Mama Kim at 8745 E. Orchard Road as closed. Guard's remark that "a lot of restaurants have closed" applies to the Tech Center too. Some of the incoming names will be filling spaces that recently turned over.

Planning the next few months around the openings

These openings will arrive over more than a year, so here's the order to expect them in:

1. Now: Yummy Hot Pot III on East Arapahoe Road is open. The newer tenants at Belleview Station are within a short drive.
2. October or November: G&G Surf Club is the opening to watch. The official G&G Surf Club site still works as a contact page for opening news, menus, tastings and private dining, and hadn't posted an opening date or hours as of this writing. Treat it as coming soon until the team announces a date.
3. December 5: The Mayor's Holiday Lighting at City Hall is on the city's annual events schedule and is listed as a residents-only event. It's a good night to pair with a dinner reservation if G&G is open by then.
4. To be announced: The Brinkerhoff at Greenwood Plaza has its approvals but no opening date.
5. 2027: Barcelona Wine Bar at On The Square.

Each item on this list depends on a landlord who needed a tenant and a proven operator who got a good deal. Those same conditions are reflected in the two September office sales that closed at roughly a third of their earlier prices.

Commercial vacancy in the Tech Center is changing what's down the street from many Greenwood Village homes, and it's worth knowing how that plays into the value of your own property. If you'd like to talk through what these new tenants mean for your street, Jonathon Sakalas is happy to walk through it with you. Let's Connect.